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Typically,
sentences do not commute.
But sometimes they do. Consider:
Scooter is a liar.
Liar is a scooter.
Both equally true, as convicted perjurer Scooter Libby manages
to zip
past his required jail time, with a little help from his friends
in high places.
(I find it hard to believe that I’m the first to think of this joke.
Or perhaps I’m just the first to admit it in public.)
The deep, inscrutable irony here, of course, is that George W. Bush hates
to pardon people or commute their sentences. Not
his job to overrule a jury, he proudly proclaims. Even if we’re
talking about a metally
retarded inmate sentenced to death by a jury that never had a
chance to hear mitigating evidence. Those inmates could count themselves
lucky if W didn’t openly
mock them. But Scooter was special; the usual
formalities were readily dispensed with in this case.
Or perhaps Bush has simply experienced a change of heart, and will now
start freeing all sorts of unjustly
convicted prisoners. He has plenty of opportunity; the
U.S. has by far the world’s largest prison population, over two
million, and it’s growing
faster than ever. Over a third are estimated to be nonviolent
drug offenders, typically punished by preposterous
mandatory sentencing laws. I might point out that the impact of
such laws does not seem to fall equally on members of all racial and economic
groups, but that could seem shrill.
Folks who would, on ideological grounds, tend to be sympathetic towards
the Republican party are struggling with the challenge presented to them
by the Bush administration. It’s perfectly possible to be in favor
of tax cuts, Social Security privatization, and the war in Iraq, and yet
recognize that this administration represents a vortex of corruption,
venality, and incompetence that the country hasn’t had to suffer
through in at least the last hundred years. Bush’s fondness for
signing
statements that declare his intention to follow the laws passed
by Congress only when he wants to would typically be grounds all by itself
for honest conservatives to wash their hands of the guy. But so many people
still find it hard to do. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy (where one of
their co-bloggers, Randy Barnett, was actually a co-author on a brief
submitted on behalf of Libby), both Orin
Kerr and Eugene
Volokh can only look at the President’s decision to commute
Libby’s sentence and shake their heads in disgust. But their commenters,
not so much. These are people who used
to think that perjury was bad, but now seem to have softened their
stance, characterizing (Republican) investigator Patrick Fitzgerald’s
prosecution of Libby as politcal and partisan (except that it’s
not).
Republicans should be thanking their lucky stars for the 22nd
Amendment, and by extension FDR. Can you imagine if Bush were
allowed to run for a third term? The acrimonious split between his die-hard
supporters and conservatives with any sort of remaining integrity would
tear the party apart, possibly for good.[B]
SEAN CARROLL
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